


Yet From Your Sadness, Our Happiness Grew

by piratekelly



Series: New Favorite Day [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Holidays, M/M, Pack Feels, Pre-Slash, Thanksgiving, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5269448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/pseuds/piratekelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek plans to spend the holidays like he always has: drowning in guilt and, lately, booze.  But for one reason or another, he finds himself crawling through Stiles’ window rather than into a bottle.  What happens after that is probably a much healthier alternative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yet From Your Sadness, Our Happiness Grew

**Author's Note:**

> Happy (early) Thanksgiving!
> 
> The title comes from the Fox & the Hound.

\--

 

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and Derek has never been so bitter about the lack of supernatural events in Beacon Hills in his life.  Sure, up until a few days ago he’d been bitching about everything that had been happening (his favorite had been the witch who’d cursed most of the pack to hallucinate scenes from _Jumanji_ – his couch still hasn’t recovered from Erica fighting off a “big-ass lion,” but there aren’t any holes in his living room ceiling, so he’ll count it as a win) but if he was being honest, they were so busy that he hadn’t realized what the date was. Now, Derek would do just about anything for a catastrophe to strike.

 

He hates the holiday season.

 

Okay, so it’s not that he hates the season – he loved them as a kid.  The entire pack would show up at the Hale house between Thanksgiving and Christmas and he’d play with his little cousins and they’d all go annoy Laura because she was 10 and mean and Derek loved to pick on her.  His parents always decorated the house, garland wrapped around the banister of the staircase, lights hung around the fireplace, tree standing tall in the library covered in ornaments and popcorn, the smell of pine and gingerbread and _home_ among the more vivid memories he has.

 

The memories don’t make his chest feel as tight as they used to – the memories that, at 17, had left him gasping for breath on the subways of New York, grounded only by the constant swaying of the car and the level heartbeats of the strangers around him.  He missed the stop near his and Laura’s apartment more times than not because of that.  Laura never asked why he was almost two hours late getting home from school most nights, but he’s pretty sure she know.  It’s not like he never heard her crying alone in her room at night every so often. He used to try to convince himself that giving her time alone to grieve was the real reason he was home late. As Alpha, she projected her grief and he couldn’t stand to be near it some days, which was true, but the guilt had been what had kept them from truly reconnecting.  He’d loved his sister fiercely, but she was never the same. The sister he knew died with the last remaining embers of the fire.

 

The blame he carried has since devolved into something less debilitating, but just as persistent.  Having the pack helps.  Despite the fact that things haven’t slowed down for them when it comes to protecting their territory, the betas are happy, settled in a way he’s not sure they ever were before.

 

Isaac stopped flinching at sudden movements after having spent the last year crashing with the McCalls, Erica finally settled into her own, happily unapologetic person, and Boyd hasn’t really changed much. He talks a little more though, so it’s better than nothing.  Jackson finally stopped challenging Derek’s authority about six months after the time in the warehouse no one likes to remember, and after that, Jackson proved himself to be good for the pack.  They all help keep Derek balanced, give him a sense of stability that he was lacking even when Laura was still alive.

 

They’re a unit now.  A real pack, one that operates together.  It’s not quite the way it used to be – he’s still a long way from building the pack his mother had created, but he feels good about the foundation he’s started.  With Lydia, Stiles, Danny, and sometimes Allison included, there hasn’t been a challenge they haven’t overcome one way or another.

 

Newfound sense of family aside, none of that changes the way he feels around the holidays.  Isaac and Erica, as much as he has grown to love them, haven’t left him alone in _days_.  He can sense their anxiety, their concern, and he knows that reverting back to the surly, bitter guy he’d been when he first returned to Beacon Hills isn’t doing anything to alleviate their worries, but he can’t help it. It’s just how he acts when it all gets to be too much.  Derek never said he was good with his emotions – he figured the evidence to the contrary would speak for itself.  So the last time Jackson had come to the house (the fourth time in a week and a half, like that wasn’t a dead giveaway – Jackson might recognize Derek as his alpha, but that doesn’t mean he comes by more often than is absolutely necessary) he’d told them all, in no uncertain terms, to not return until after they’d spent the holiday with their families.  He didn’t need to ruin their time off from school.  Five days wouldn’t kill him.

 

He knew they didn’t believe him, but they left anyway.

 

Which is how, two days later, he finds himself driving in to town with every intention of buying enough groceries to get him past Thanksgiving, and enough alcohol to help blur the days a little bit. He just wanted enough to make everything a little fuzzy around the edges.  Really. He has every intention of doing this – has been doing this since he turned 21 two years ago – then hiding away in his house for the next four days.  He made a list.

 

But for one reason or another he finds himself turning right instead of left, creeping through the residential side of town and climbing through Stiles’ window instead of into a black pit of despair. He doesn’t remember making the conscious decision to do it, but he’s willing to run with it for now. It’s early, probably too early, if he’s being honest; the stores will still be open for a while yet. When he sticks his head through the window, however, he thinks he might have an idea of what drew him here.

 

The smell of salt permeates the air, the feeling of longing, of sadness hanging over the room like a dark cloud. It strikes Derek that nothing about this room is as it should be.  The computer is shut and still on the desk, all the lights off but a small lamp by Stiles’ bed, which, upon closer inspection, seem to have not been vacated yet today. Stiles isn’t actively crying but the occasional tear tracks its way down his cheek, and the image before him breaks his heart.  Stiles has his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around himself in an effort to shield himself from the source of his pain.  It dawns on Derek that Stiles makes it so easy, sometimes, to forget how much he’s lost.  Under the bumbling, hormonal teenage façade is a boy who watched his mother die slowly and painfully, watched his father drown his grief in a bottle and overtime hours, who had to deal with constant rejection from his peers because his ADHD made him “weird.”  Stiles, with the happy-go-lucky attitude and the brains and the snark and the never-ending desire to help anyone he can, also gets undeniably sad sometimes, but never lets anybody see.

 

Derek tries to back out of the window as quietly as possible, to give Stiles the privacy he himself so desperately craves some days, but –

 

“Derek?”

 

– the way Stiles’ voice cracks has Derek freezing in place, straddling the window sill.

 

“Hey, Stiles.”

 

Stiles buries his face in his hands and tries to discreetly wipe the moisture from his eyes.  Derek figures he might as well just stay, since Stiles has given no indication that he wants Derek to leave, and walks over to the desk, grabbing the back of the office chair and pulling it over to sit across from Stiles. They don’t speak as Stiles gathers himself, pulling on the worn sleeves of his red hoodie, and refusing to make eye contact.  While he waits, Derek checks Stiles over; physically he seems just fine, but something about him seems off.  He’s not hurt, and he doesn’t look any different, but then Derek notices that the sweatshirt Stiles is wearing doesn’t have a zipper.  Stiles only has one red hoodie, and this isn’t it.

 

“It was my mom’s.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Stiles clears his throat.  “The sweatshirt.  It was my mom’s.”

 

“Oh,” he whispers.

 

“I know, right?”  Stiles huffs, pulling his knees closer to his chest. “It’s weird, wearing my dead mom’s sweatshirt.”

 

“As opposed to the level of weird we encounter on a daily basis?  No, it’s not weird, Stiles.”

 

“It’s just–” Stiles sniffs, “Sometimes, if I focus hard enough, I can convince myself it still smells like her.”

 

Derek doesn’t reach out like he wants to. Despite all the time they’ve spent in (very) close quarters, this is something he hasn’t experienced with Stiles yet. Does Stiles want to be hugged when he’s sad?  Does he welcome _any_ sort of physical contact? He’s a tactile person by nature, but grief changes a lot of things for most people.  Derek’s willing to bet that Stiles doesn’t like to be alone, if the fact that he’s been invited to this conversation is any indication, but aside from the urge to pull him in and offer comfort in what little ways he can, Derek is sort of at a loss. 

 

“My mom loved Thanksgiving.”

 

Judging by his reaction, Stiles seems genuinely surprised that Derek is willing to talk about his family.  To be honest, Derek is surprised too.  Even with the recent developments in their relationship, discussion of their respective families fell under the umbrella of “things we don’t talk about ever,” mostly by unspoken agreement.  But Stiles is opening up here, talking to Derek about one of the things that still brings him so much pain after so long, and apparently Derek is surprised enough to lose control over his mouth. Contrary to popular belief, Derek doesn’t hate talking about his family – he does discuss them with people who knew them.  What Derek hates is people telling him he _has_ to talk about them, the people who tell him that they understand how he feels. But Stiles is the only person other than Laura who has never demanded that he talk about how losing his family affected him, because Stiles already knows what that loss feels like, the hole it leaves behind.  That thought, more than anything, is what gets Derek talking.

 

“She hated Thanksgiving itself – didn’t like all the history behind it, but mostly she hated the idea that being thankful for everything you had only mattered one day out of the year.  She always said we should recognize how lucky we were every day, because we never knew how long we’d still have it,” he scoffs. “I guess she had a point.”

 

“Derek–”

 

“So instead of doing anything traditional,” he continues.  “We did the opposite. No turkey, no parade, no football, we just carried on like it was a normal day.  The only thing we did that was out of the ordinary was let all the kids pick one of their favorite foods for dinner.  My mom made it all.”  Derek finds himself stopping long enough to smile, remembering the year all of his little cousins asked for things like chicken nuggets and ice cream sundaes and omelets, and his mom made sure every last thing got made. It was also one of their last Thanksgivings before the fire.  “Uh, after dinner we’d run as a pack until we were all too tired to move and came home and passed out on the living room floor.  Laura and I tried, the year after the fire, but…”

 

“It’s not the same.”

 

Derek shakes his head.

 

“Hey,” Stiles reaches out, slowly sets his hand on Derek’s forearm, thumb gently rubbing the fabric of Derek’s long sleeved shirt. “They’d be proud of you.”

 

Derek snorts, and Stiles abruptly stops moving. For a split second, Derek thinks Stiles is going to tell him to fuck off, that if he’s just going to rain on Stiles’ already wet blanket he can just take his own emotional thunderstorm elsewhere. Stiles pulls his hand away, almost violently throwing himself from the bed in his efforts to get to his closet, and Derek turns the chair in time to see Stiles kneeling halfway through the door, throwing clothes behind him and muttering to himself before popping out a floorboard and pumping his fist in victory.  He reaches in and pulls out a square shaped object that’s been stuffed in a plastic bag. Derek raises an eyebrow in question, but Stiles ignores him in favor of crawling back into his bed and patting the spot to his right.  It’s a testament to how close they’ve become in the last few months that Derek doesn’t even question the gesture, just takes the few steps from the chair to the bed to kick off his shoes before settling down, taking comfort in the warmth of Stiles’ body settling so close to his.

 

While Derek was situating himself, Stiles had pulled the object from the bag: it’s blue, a book, nothing spectacular, until he sees the way Stiles gently caresses the cover and takes a deep breath before opening it.

 

It’s a photo album, the first page a portrait of a beautiful woman in her late twenties, with curly brown hair and green eyes and a mouth he’d recognize anywhere, since it’s practically the same one that talks his ear off on a regular basis.  This is Mrs. Stilinski, and after one look at her, he kind of wishes he’d known her. She seems kind, smile wide and laughing, body relaxed and open, eyes just as emotive as her son’s. He imagines she was probably looking at a little Stiles when it was taken.  Though Derek appreciates that Stiles has let him in to a part of his life that only Scott has been privy to, it still makes Derek uneasy. Sharing stories about dead family members isn’t exactly something that demands reciprocity; Derek wants Stiles to _want_ to tell him this, not to put them on a level playing field.

 

“Stiles–”

 

“My dad doesn’t know I have these,” he starts, shooting Derek a look that very clearly says _interrupt me and I’ll put wolfsbane in every pair of underwear you own and we’ll see if you do it again_ , so Derek settles back against the headboard and directs his attention toward the album.  “After my mom died it got really hard to see her face everywhere, so he took all the pictures down.  I cried every time I saw one and that always set off a panic attack, so for a long time, I never looked for them.  But a couple years ago I woke up and I couldn’t remember her laugh, and I tore the attic apart, because that’s where we put all of her things, and I looked until I found them. I used my allowance to buy a decent album and I talked the lady at Wal-Mart into helping me make copies of the pictures. I get it out when missing her hurts more than seeing her.”

 

“What happened to the pictures you took from the attic?”

 

Stiles snorts.  “Put them back the first chance I got.”  His smile is still watery, but he seems less sad than he did before. “About a year later one of them made it back out to the mantle in the living room.”

 

Derek knows the one, has seen it multiple times when he comes through the front door on occasions when the Sheriff isn’t home. Stiles was little, probably no more than four, sitting on a blanket in the clearing by the lake Derek used to visit with his parents, Stiles curled up between his parents. They’d obviously had a passerby take the picture, but they all look happy.  The Sheriff doesn’t have any shadows in his eyes and baby Stiles is untouched by all the circumstances that would eventually change who he is later on in life.  It’s a good family picture, reminiscent of the stock images sold in empty frames, and Derek wishes that Stiles had had more chances for pictures like that.

 

It’s irrational, but Derek is a little jealous that Stiles has these memories to cling to when he misses his mom too much. All Derek has are a few pictures of him and Laura stuffed in a shoebox in the Camaro’s trunk, ready to go at a moment’s notice.  They’re the only tangible memories he has.  He wishes he had images like these to anchor him – moments frozen in time, proof that his life before the fire had been real, that once upon a time he’d been acquainted with unbridled happiness.  Derek tries, but the memory of his mother’s perfume is still laced with smoke.

 

“Derek.  You with me, man?”

 

Derek’s head snaps up.  “Hm?  Yeah,” he grunts, burying his face in his hands and wiping the moisture that collected under his eyes.  If Stiles sees, he doesn’t say anything.

 

“No, you’re not,” Stiles smiles, though it seems somewhat forced.  “It’s okay. You’re not the only one missing somebody.”

 

Derek doesn’t know how to respond to that, to someone telling him he has a right to be sad, that the blame he carried for so long is a weight that’s no longer necessary, that he’s punished himself enough and should allow himself to grieve and miss them and try to heal. Instead, he opts for silence, letting the statement hang in the air.  Stiles will feel compelled to break the silence sooner or later. Derek gives him five minutes.

 

Stiles makes it ten before asking Derek if he wants to watch movies.

 

Derek smiles.  “ _Oliver and Company_?”

 

Stiles grins in return and flails back to his closet.

 

They get through three more movies before Derek falls asleep with a passing thought as to how he really needs to stop falling asleep in Stiles’ bed, but he ignores it in favor of snuggling into his pillow and tuning out the world.  It’ll still be there tomorrow anyway.

 

Derek sleeps and dreams of his family.

 

\--

 

He’s at peace when he wakes up, for the first time in a long time, but he’ll have time to reflect on who helped that happen later. He hears the Sheriff and Stiles talking downstairs, so he scratches out a quick thank you note to Stiles, grabs his shoes, and jumps out the window.

 

His heart might not hurt today, but getting shot will.

 

\--  


It started out innocently enough. Derek had wanted to do something nice for Stiles, to show how much he appreciated Stiles letting him crash in his bed all the time, and Derek had thought to himself, “Why not get Stiles a more durable album for his mom’s photos?”

 

Two days later Derek finds himself in an arts and crafts store two towns over staring at photo albums with absolutely no clue which one to pick.

 

So here he is.  Except everything sucks.  It’s all floral prints or expensive leather and none of those seem right. They’re _nice_ , he knows that, but Stiles’ album, from the beginning, has been all about preserving his mother’s memory, not changing it. And Stiles bought that album to keep _his_ memories consistent, and –

 

And after 30 minutes of aggressively flipping through stack upon stack of albums, it finally hits Derek.

 

  1.   Stiles doesn’t need a new album; he needs the few memories he has to never fade.



 

He moves down a few aisles before he finds them, and it’s only a matter of minutes before he finds what he’s been looking for. The label next to it says it’s a rosewood finish, with dimensions wide enough to allow Stiles to store the album he already has, and extra sleeves should he decide to add to his collection. There’s a picture frame on the lid of the box, and Derek hopes one day that the pack will come to mean as much to Stiles as his mother still does, and that Stiles will add pictures of his new family to the memories he already cherishes.

 

Derek buys it without hesitation.

 

He’s driving back to Beacon Hills when his phone goes off with a text from Stiles.

 

_Scott’s house. 6 tonight.  Emergency pack meeting._

 

Derek frowns, tests back once he hits a red light.

 

_Is someone dead?_

Stiles’ response is quick.

 

_Everyone still breathing.  Just show up, loser_.

 

Derek snorts, but responds in the affirmative. He’s halfway home with an hour and a half to spare.  It’s enough time for his mind to wander.

 

Maybe he’ll wrap Stiles’ gift when he gets home. Keep his mind busy. He really, really doesn’t want to know why Stiles would need to call a pack meeting the day before Thanksgiving.

 

\--

 

After ten minutes of debating with himself, Derek decides to leave the box in the car – if Stiles’ dad doesn’t know about the album, he’s willing to bet no one else does either.  He’ll talk to Stiles about it later.

 

It’s 6pm on the dot, and Derek is standing at the front door of Scott’s house, Stiles grinning in front of him, when he realizes the box isn’t going to be nearly enough.  He can smell all the food, can hear the chatter of the pack behind Stiles, the distinct sound of Lydia directing foot traffic in what he would guess is the kitchen, and his jaw drops.  He knows his eyes are getting misty, feels like he’s had the breath knocked from his lungs because Stiles –

 

“What?” he chokes out.

 

Stiles grabs him by the wrist, pulls him over the threshold and takes off his jacket.  Derek is still too stunned to react like a normal person, so Stiles has to shove him through the living room and into the kitchen, where Derek sees just enough to stop them in their tracks.  The entire pack, and even Mrs. McCall – who, since finding out about them has sort of taken over the role of pack mom – are sitting around the dining room table, which is piled high with a random assortment of meals and desserts and flat out junk food (Erica, he knows that’s Erica, she goes through boxes of Fruit Gushers faster than Derek can replenish her stock) and he’s not sure what to do. So he just stands there and stares.

 

“Derek?”  Oh, that’s Melissa.  He focuses in on her while the others carry on like he isn’t on the verge of falling apart, and he’s never been more grateful that his betas have learned to read him so well. Melissa looks so pretty, even in just a t-shirt and jeans, reminds Derek so much of his own mother with the ferocity with which she defends Scott (and the rest of them when the situation calls for it), and Derek wants nothing more than to burrow into her and never come out.  She must notice, because before he knows it he’s been pulled into the kitchen and soon has his arms full of Melissa McCall, and she’s whispering, “I can never replace her, but I’ve been told I give good mom hugs.” 

 

Derek nods, hugs her back, and is about to pull away when she tacks on a simple, “She’d want you to be happy” that has the air punching out of his chest for the second time in less than an hour. He holds on to her for just a second longer and thinks that he needs to show her how much he appreciates the things she’s done for them in the last two years.  He needs to be better about it with all of them, really, but definitely Melissa.

 

For now, he’ll just hug her a little tighter.

 

He feels a little more collected and a lot better about the day when he finally does manage to pull himself away from her embrace. He sees Stiles out of the corner of his eye, hands clasped behind his back, bottom lip caught between his teeth, doing his best to make it seem like he hadn’t been watching Derek have a moment. Derek smirks and walks over to him, cuffing him on the back of the head.  At Stiles’ cry of pain, Derek replies, “You know what that was for.”

 

Stiles laughs.  “You’ll never let that go, will you?”

 

“Nope,” Derek responds.  The room goes silent, and Stiles’ nerves seem to increase with its length.  “Thanks, Stiles.”

 

Stiles exhales, body relaxing with the action, and he grins.  “Go stuff your face, Wolverine.  This was not easy to pull together.”

 

They walk back over to the dining room, where Derek takes his designated seat at the head of the table, Stiles to his right; all of a sudden the room goes quiet, like no one knows what to do now that the guest of honor has arrived.  Derek opens his mouth to say something, _anything_ but Stiles lifts his glass and shouts,

 

“Happy Packsgiving, everybody!”

 

A chorus of cheers follows as everybody clinks glasses. Bowls and plates of various foods are passed around, individual plates piled high with pizza and pasta and some vegetables (“Hey, you’re growing kids!  You might be able to heal in minutes, but as a mom, you need to let me think I’m doing my part to keep you healthy!  Also, I like brussel sprouts, so you all can suck it.”)  The constant chatter was broken only by the occasional bark of laughter, underlined by the sounds of forks and knives scraping the surface of a plate, the dull thunk of a glass being set down.  As dinner slides into dessert, Melissa taps her fork against the side of her glass and clears her throat.

 

“Derek, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to dedicate the first annual Packsgiving to your family.”

 

“Uh, yeah,” he whispers, swallowing around the lump in his throat.  “That, uh… That’s okay.”

 

She nods, smiling as she raises her glass and says, “To the Hales!”

 

“To the Hales!”

 

“To the Hales!”

 

“To Mama Hale!”

 

Derek doesn’t even care that he’s tearing up again. It’s worth it to see how pleased the pack looks at having made him happy.

 

Dessert carries on much like dinner – noise and laughter.  Derek thinks his mother would have loved it, loved this _group_ , if she could see them.  He likes to think she can, that it’s her spirit that guided him through coming home, becoming Alpha, defeating the alpha pack, leading this group of teenagers and molding them into the kind of chosen family that does things like _Packsgiving_.  More than anything, he wishes she could see the family he’s built on the foundation she so carefully cultivated.

 

But he knows that’s not possible, so instead he closes his eyes and listens to his pack talk about homework and past supernatural encounters gone wrong, and Melissa scolding them for their language, and he smiles.  Out of everyone, his mom definitely would have liked Melissa.

 

He leans back in his chair and thinks of his family.

 

It doesn’t hurt.

 

\--

 

It’s hours later and Stiles and Derek are the only guests left in the McCall household.  Derek had offered to help with cleanup, but Melissa had simply smiled and said that Scott would be responsible for washing all the dishes all the time, as it would be good practice for future employment if his calculus grade didn’t come up, and sent Stiles and Derek on their way.

 

They climb into the Camaro (“I walked here, dude, it’s like two blocks.) and Derek drives the short distance to Stiles’ house, making small talk along the way.  Conversation falls away as Derek pulls up in front of the Stilinski home, the two sitting in a comfortable silence, the hum of the engine their only background noise. After a few minutes, Derek decides that it’s now or never.

 

“Look in the backseat.”  When he doesn’t hear any movement he turns to see Stiles staring at him, brow furrowed and lips turned down in confusion. “Just do it, you idiot.”

 

“You should be nicer to me, you know,” he argues, reaching into the backseat and fumbling around until Derek hears his hand connect with the plastic, which he never did replace with actual wrapping paper. “I did just throw you the best Packsgiving _ever_.”

 

Derek growls, eyes glowing red, and Stiles raises his empty hand to hold off the inevitable alpha demand, and pulls the bag into the front seat.  Derek looks at the bag, then back to Stiles, does it two more times before Stiles realizes that he’s supposed to _open_ the bag, not just move it from one end of the car to the other, but as Stiles reaches to separate the handles, Derek stops him.

 

Stiles groans, throwing his head back in frustration. “Dude, do you want me to open this or not?”

 

“Just,” Derek sighs, “Let me say something, okay?”

 

“Yeah, sure, by all means.”

 

“How magnanimous of you.”

 

“Oh, nice word, they teach you that at the X-Mansion?”

 

“It sure as hell wasn’t at Beacon Hills High.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ll have you know that –”

 

“Stiles,” Derek groans.  “Just… let me talk.”  The car falls into silence, and Derek waits a moment to see if Stiles is going to butt in before continuing.  “Thank you.”

 

When Derek doesn’t continue, Stiles turns to him and frowns.  “That’s it?”

 

“That’s it.”

 

“But you didn’t know about the dinner tonight, so what’s _this_ for?” he asks, gesturing animatedly towards the bag.

 

“You listened to me, the other night. Only…” Derek has to pause, let the wave of emotion he always feels when he thinks about his sister wash over him before he can go on.  “Only Laura ever did that. So just… Thanks.”

 

Stiles swallows, chuckles quietly to himself. “Uh, yeah, man. You’re welcome, I guess.”

 

Derek barks out a laugh, then tells Stiles to just open the damn bag already.  He can feel his anxiety rising as Stiles pulls the box out, jaw dropping as he gently brushes his fingers over the closed lid.  Stiles doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare, and it makes Derek nervous. Not for the first time, he wonders if this might qualify as going too far considering how new this part of their relationship is, but then he hears Stiles’ breath hitch slightly, sees him turn to Derek with wide eyes that hold nothing but gratitude, and Derek lets himself breathe again.

 

“I figured you could use something more durable to store your album.  It’s, uh…” Derek scratches the back of his neck, huffs out a breath.  “It’s got room for more pictures if you ever want to, you know –”

 

“Derek?”  He turns just in time to see Stiles gently put the box down in the foot well before he has his arms full of the teen, and while the hugging is relatively new as well (no, manfully spooning after watching Disney movies is not the same), Derek doesn’t hesitate to hold him back.  They stay like that, the both of them nearly seated in the driver’s seat, breathing each other in for long moments as Stiles works to get his breathing under control.  Derek feels the occasional drop of warmth hit his neck, but he ignores it, pulling Stiles in until he feels him relax into the embrace.  Derek doesn’t know how long they’ve been like this, but eventually Stiles pulls back with a ragged breath, not bothering to wipe away the moisture that’s gathered in his lashes.  He offers Derek a wobbly smile, and it’s like Derek is really _seeing_ Stiles for the first time.

 

“Thank you.  It’s perfect.”

 

Derek coughs and rights himself in his seat, once again staring through the windshield.  “Good.  I’m glad.”  
  
Silence once again descends upon them, but it hasn’t been uncomfortable between them in a long time.  They both need to process everything that’s happened tonight, and perhaps the only reason neither of them has made an effort to bring the night to an end is that it’s easier to do it when you’re in the company of someone who understands. So Derek decides that he’ll sit there for as long as Stiles needs him to, and he’ll go home and process on his own, because he prefers it that way.

 

It takes about twenty minutes before Stiles quietly gathers his things and reaches for the door handle, but before he can open the door Derek finds himself uttering words he hasn’t said with any conviction in years.

 

“Happy Thanksgiving, Stiles.”

 

He’ll probably never be sure why he said it, but the way Stiles’ face lights up is reason enough.

 

“Happy Thanksgiving, Derek.”

 

He watches as Stiles walks up the steps to the front door, makes sure he hears the click of the lock before pulling away. On the drive home he refuses to think about anything other than that he’s had a genuinely good day. It’s the first holiday in eight years that hadn’t had him running from his ghosts; instead, his new pack, his family, had openly embraced people they’d never met, because they meant something to Derek.  He’s getting better, and he thinks that maybe one day the guilt will disappear and he’ll be happy again.

 

But for now, he thinks as he crosses through his front door, he’s going to bury his face in his pillow and sleep for the next twelve hours.  It’s been an emotionally exhausting day and he can feel it in his bones.

 

He strips down to his boxers and climbs into bed, welcoming the feeling of cool sheets against his overheated skin, and closes his eyes.

 

That night, he dreams of brown eyes and pale, mole-dotted skin.

 

Hours later, he wakes up smiling.


End file.
